


Astrolabe

by ohemdee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Missing Family, Pre-Relationship, Stargazing, prsummerexchange17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 16:38:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11294577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohemdee/pseuds/ohemdee
Summary: Rey has a sleepless night on base, and finds herself in the company of Poe.





	Astrolabe

Everyone on the base had nights when their thoughts overpowered their ability to sleep uninterrupted, and Rey was no exception to this rule. Her mind had been turning constantly over the last few days, and light day for physical training meant that she wasn’t falling into bed exhausted at the end of the day, collapsing from her efforts, and finding sweet unconsciousness until morning. She was staring at the bottom of her bunkmate's bed, trying to will herself into sleep, and failing quite miserably. She couldn’t remember the latest roommates name, a new recruit, and the first that hadn’t immediately moved out when they learned who Rey was. Too many stories of Force users, or horrific encounters with Kylo Ren had meant the last two were less than friendly towards her, and Rey could hardly blame them for that. She sighed softly. Starting down that tangle of thoughts wasn’t going to improve anything either. She tossed her pillow and blanket around for a couple more minutes, pausing when she heard shifting above her, and finally giving up on getting any rest, and instead getting up and quietly dressing and grabbing her staff before heading out into the base, hoping that a walk would settle her down, and, if nothing else, was going to prevent her from disturbing the sleeping woman in her room.

She breathed a small sigh of relief when she stepped out into the hall. The base at night was peaceful, her only company the whirring of generators and the minimal night staff. She nodded at the two people she saw, who smiled at her in understanding, and made her way to the main doors, hunting for fresh air. As much as she was enjoying her life on the base, the readily available food and water and company a welcome change, she did miss the nights under Jakku’s sky, when there was nothing but her and the air and the sand. She tipped her face up when the first breeze hit her through the door, inhaling deep into her belly, filling her lungs to their capacity with the sweet air of D’Qar, letting the wind work the sweat that she had built up in her restlessness off of her skin.

The stars on D’Qar were beautiful- with majority of the base being underground, there was very little light pollution to dampen their shine. The first of two moons had risen, which made Rey breathe a bit easier; it was earlier in the night that she had thought it was, which hopefully meant that she would still have time to get a decent amount of sleep before her day started at the crack of dawn.

She set off down a small path, leading her away from the base. She waved to a guard as she walked by, pointing towards her destination. He saluted and gave her the all clear, grinning a bit cheekily, which she didn’t fully understand as she made her way through the trees, until she found that her small clearing on the edge of a cliff was already occupied. She frowned and let her shoulders droop. She really did just want solitude tonight, and of course that meant that Poe had to be right in her space.

Rey hadn’t fully formed her thoughts about the man. Finn hero-worshiped him, and the other pilots spoke of his leadership. General Organa certainly admired him, frequently seeking his opinion in meetings, and taking everything he said under advisement. But Rey found him to be a bit too brash and reckless, seeming to jump into battle or any other situation without fully thinking out the consequences, and she wasn’t sure if she was irritated by his action or jealous of his ability to do so. Still, he was fun to be around, and so far he hadn’t led the Resistance astray, so Rey couldn’t judge him too harshly.

She began to quietly retreat, and of course stepped on a branch, the sound snapping the night in two. She froze, and heard movement behind her.

“Rey? I didn’t hear you come up. Do you want to sit?”

When she turned back he was sitting up and looking over his shoulder at her, smiling a bit more tightly that she had ever seen him do before. She paused for a moment, debating her options before making her way over to him.

“You couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Poe’s smile had slipped a bit, and he was looking out over the valley below.

She shook her head. “One of those nights when my mind won’t turn off. I wanted to see the stars.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He leaned back on his hands, tilting his chin up to the sky. “Anything familiar for you? One that reminds you of home?”

She flinched a bit at that. “No, none that I know. Never really had the chance to learn their names.”

He must have caught the tone of her voice, because his hand was coming out and resting on her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t think.”

“It’s fine, Poe. Really.”

“My mother taught me all the stars she knew on Yavin IV. I started looking up star maps every time we moved base to see if I could see any of them. Keep her around a bit, you know? It keeps me grounded a bit more, reminds me that I’m never so far from home that I can’t see the same stars in the sky. It’s harder out here though, we’re so far away from everything.”

Rey felt her breath catch in her throat as another memory bubbled up, completely unbidden. They always came at odd times. This was less coherent than some- a woman’s voice murmuring in her ear, the words lost to time, and a hand pointing across her vision up at the sky, the word home repeated over and over. Rey sighed, and tried to ease the tightness in her chest. Knowing that there had actually been a family out there for her, someone who had told her to wait hurt more than anything else in the war she was fighting. A part of her still itched to go back to Jakku, wait inside her AT-AT until a hand could come through and pull her into the home that she had been missing before she even knew that it was real.

“Rey?” Her attention snapped back to Poe, and she shook her head, dismissing the lingering thoughts.

“Sorry, sometimes I remember things, and I get a little lost. I think my mother had tried to teach me the stars too, but it was so long ago…” she trailed off.

“I could tell you about the stars here, if you wanted. Maybe that would jog another memory? Or you could try and count the stars too. My mother made me do that a lot when I wouldn’t sleep as well. Somehow I never made it past 20 or so.”

Rey laughed, and wrapped her arms around her knees, resting her cheek on her arms, and looking over at Poe, who smiled back at her. “Hearing about the stars would be nice.”

He grinned, and patted the ground next to him. “Okay then, scoot over here.”

Rey shifted over, and then yelped when Poe put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back to lay down next him, her breath jumping out as her back hit the ground. She turned her head and glared at him, hiding her surprise at his face laying so close to hers, their noses nearly touching. His smile widened, and he feigned a shocked look at her. “Well you can’t stargaze sitting up.”

She reached out and flicked him lightly on the forehead in response, jolting a laugh out of him before he settled back and looked up.

“Okay, so planets first. You can tell they’re not stars because they don’t twinkle.” Rey followed the line of his arm up. “So that one there is Naboo. You see that?”

Rey nodded and then realised that he couldn’t actually see her. “Yeah. I didn’t know that planets had the steady light.”

“That’s why they are good for landmarking, so you can find other stars.” Rey felt his head brush against hers. “Okay, so follow my arm. Those stars there, that cluster? That is the Sanbra system. And back the other way, that bright one? That’s Gash Rugosa. A terrible name, I know.”

Poe continued, taking her through the sky, getting excited as meteors passed overhead, giving her bits of history about the planets they were looking at, battles that had been fought and won (or lost), who was aligned with who during each war. Slowly, but surely his voice got softer, and Rey found herself coming in closer to his side, listening to the rumble of his voice through his ribs and up into her chest. No matter how she tried, she found her eyelids drifting shut, her mind slowly wandering towards sleep.

She awoke with a start, and a faceful of Poe’s jacket. She glanced down to her feet, and suppressed a giggle at the little bird that had come over to tug on her boot laces, waking her up. Her shoulders’ shaking disturbed Poe, the arm around her waist tightened and he grumbled in his sleep. The sun was just beginning to crest over the horizon, and Rey carefully began to extract herself from Poe’s arms, trying her hardest to let him continue to sleep. The light would wake him up soon enough anyways. At some point in the night he had balled up his sweater under his head as a pillow, and she paused for a moment to study his face as she sat up. The last night hadn’t gone the way she had expected, that was for certain. Poe Dameron, Resistance Hero was a very different man from Poe Dameron, Stargazer. His eyelids flickered, and he couldn’t hide his smile.

“Like what you see?” Rey sat up the rest of the way, rolling her eyes, which made him laugh, and he sat up next to her, watching the sunrise and the birds beginning to take off over the valley, rising up through the mist and into the air. “Guess we should probably get going. You’ve got some very important sitting or something to do with Luke I imagine.”

Rey stuck her tongue out at him, and raised a few small pebbles to fall down on his head with the Force. “Important sitting with pebbles, I think you mean.”

Poe ruffled his hands through his hair, dislodging a couple of rocks that had gotten stuck before getting to his feet, holding his hand out to her to pull her up next to him. They both looked down as her stomach rumbled. “Breakfast?”

“Breakfast.” Rey agreed.

They walked in amicable silence down to the hall, Rey waving to the guard that had let her through the night before, who’s eyes narrowed as he saw them walking in together. She sighed internally. Gossip on the base was probably the only thing that ran well.

“So,” Poe started, pausing until she looked up at him. “I was thinking, maybe tonight, we could do some more stargazing. Maybe start a little earlier so we can go sleep in real beds, save my back.”

Rey looked up at him curiously, trying to figure out if there was another layer to what he was asking. He shifted a bit under her scrutiny, one hand coming up to scratch the back of his neck. “ Only if you want to, no worries or anything, but you were good company, and I’ve been thinking of asking for something like that for a while.” He silenced as one slim finger was pressed against his lips.

“I would love to, Poe.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift written for bebeocho on Tumblr as a part of the Damerey Exchange. Thanks for the prompts, and I hope you enjoyed!
> 
> As per usual, you can find me tumblin' around on my [writing blog](http://emdeewrites.tumblr.com/) and my [main blog](http://oh-emdee.tumblr.com/)


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